A Critical Discourse Analysis Of Obama's Speeches In American Presidential Campaign

Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was proposed by Roger Fowler in 1970s. it has since then served as one of the most influential branch of discourse analysis. With the purpose of exploring the relationship between language, power and ideology, CDA linguists stress that there is a dialectical relationship between language and social context. Discourse can be considered as a force of social practice.CDA is a socially directed application of linguistic analysis. Therefore, Halliday's Systemic-Functional Grammar is the major methodological resource of CDA. He argued that the nature of language is closely related to the functions it has to serve. The grammatical system of language is related to the social and personal requirement that language is to serve. Halliday posts language as a social and interactive phenomenon performs three functions, namely, ideational, interpersonal and textual which all provide a useful prediction of what types of Grammar construction will be particular revealing for CDA.Discourse is divided by Fairclough into three dimensions, that is, texts, interactions and contexts. According to these three dimensions, CDA are distinguished to description, interpretation and explanation.This thesis is an investigation of Obama's three speeches within the frame work of three dimensions and Systemic-Functional grammar in the 2008 American presidential campaign. This paper aims to help readers to avoid the persuasion and deceiving in political speeches. It also aims to help readers to build up a critical awareness of the relationship of language; power and ideology hide in political speeches. It is beneficial for English learners to improve the critical judgment in understanding English discourse and improve their reading ability.